Casey Dunn

Science and Public Leadership Fellow 2010

Assistant Professor, Biology, Brown University

Casey Dunn examines how evolution has generated a diversity of life. Studying the evolution of morphology and genomes in an integrated framework, his lab currently researches the relationships between major groups of animals, the evolution of Cnidaria – a diverse group that includes corals, jellyfish and hydroids – and the evolution of colony deep-sea superorganisms called siphonophores. Casey founded CreatureCast, a collaborative blog about zoology, which is cross-posted by Nature and has been featured by a wide range of outlets including NPR’s Science Friday and boingboing.net. Casey’s research paints a sharper picture of both the actual history of life on Earth and general properties of evolution that have contributed to these historical patterns.